Published 06.07.2016Our TRACS Training business has again been recognised in a new collaboration with the world of oil and gas academia.

Members of the TRACS Training team are now delivering technical and commercial courses for students from the Natural Environment Research Council Centre for Doctoral Training in Oil and Gas (NERC CDT).

Based at Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, the centre is collaboration between 19 academic partners, including 17 UK universities, the National Oceanography Centre and the British Geological Survey.

The new collaboration, which sees TRACS Training providing a number of tailored field and classroom-based courses for PhD students, builds on a number of other close relationships the business has forged with universities.

Launched in October 2014, the NERC CDT takes on a cohort of around 30 PhD students each autumn. Each student undertakes a four-year PhD programme and during that time receives 20 weeks of training as part of the CDT Training Academy.

As part of the new arrangement TRACS Training has been named an associate sponsor of the NERC CDT through the provision of bespoke training modules for the CDT students.

Areas of research covered by the CDT students include the broad themes of:

Environmental Impact and Regulation

Extending the Life of Mature Basins

Exploration in Challenging Environments

Unconventional Oil and Gas Resources.

The TRACS Training team will be delivering courses in a variety of subjects including Petroleum Economics & Risk Analysis, Reservoir Engineering, Commercial Geoscience and Carbon Capture & Storage.

Anna Clark, the centre’s Training Academy Officer, said: “My goal is to source training for the students that is of a quality that will enhance their abilities as academics and young professionals. Having worked with a number of AGR TRACS Training staff in the past I knew this was something they were able to provide.”

Mark said “This is a great opportunity to contribute to a new and unusual initiative from NERC – our tutors David Palmer and Mark Cook have already delivered on the programme and we look forward to the event in November and the plan to meet in Wales for a new field event next spring.

We look forward to a long and successful relationship with the centre and its students.”

On the photo from the left:Prof Andy Aplin from Durham University, head of the CDT Training Committee and lead for the theme of Unconventional Hydrocarbons; Anna Clark; Mark Bentley; Prof John Underhill, Shell Professor for Exploration Geosciences at Heriot Watt University, Director of the CDT.